The Value of Tarot Reading with Julia Gordon-Bramer

george grombacher 0:02
Julia Gordon Bremer is a poet. She is a scholar and author a professional Tarik tarot card reader who spent the last decade interpreting Silvia paths work through mysticism. Her newest book is Taro life lessons. Welcome back to the show, Julia.

Julia Gordon-Bramer 0:19
Hi, thank you, George. It’s great to see you again.

george grombacher 0:22
Yeah, excited to have you back on refresh our memory. Even though this is our fifth time, tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do.

Julia Gordon-Bramer 0:31
Yeah, I didn’t realize it was my fifth time. I’m so honored. So So who am I, I am a professional tarot card reader, as you said, a scholar of Sylvia Plath and her mysticism. And in an author and I’m really excited about my new book, Tara life lessons. And this is this came out of COVID When my husband suggested I, he’d been saying for a long time that I had some really good stories. And during COVID, during the quarantine, I thought, I’m gonna go through my journals. And I just started looking I journal regularly. And so some of the more memorable ones some of those stories that changed my life, or, or just were so impactful in one way or another I had recorded for myself originally, and because I’m a creative writer, I had fun with it, you know, I put a little flair into it, and dialogue and, and all of that. And so during COVID, I just went through my journals and started stacking them up. And I have a book here. And I, what I did was I attached a story to each of the major arcana, tarot cards, starting with the full card, which is number zero, which is my own story, because everyone always asks me, how did you become a tarot card reader? How do you learn, you know, how do you know if you’re a psychic, things like that. And so I put all of that into my first story. And then we go into all the clients stories, and that’s where the, that’s where the good stuff is, because that’s when we’ve got scam artists, and we’ve got gold diggers and we have a murderer and we have, you know, people who are terminally lonely and we have kids who are self inflicting harm on themselves. I mean, everything, you know, it just runs the gamut. And, and I like to say that these are life lessons, and each tarot card has a lot of meat, that a lot of wisdom, you know, that I can offer my clients on healing their stuff, and helping them out of the hard times. So it was really fun to put together. Because I think it was a God thing. It got snatched up right away for publication by destiny books, which is a subsidiary of inner traditions. And, and wow, what a great team over there. Just gotta give props to them. And they also have picked up another book of mine coming out next year, which is the occult, Sylvia Plath. And I’m also very excited about that, but maybe we’ll talk about that one next year.

george grombacher 3:22
Perfect. So practical uses. And I what is what is the right term? If there is a right term? I’m experiencing a problem, you referenced a young person who is experiencing some trouble. How does taro plan to that?

Julia Gordon-Bramer 3:41
Well, you know, I think taro in a very visual way, because of course, I’m reading for the client and they can see the cards if they’re with me. And I do readings on online and so you know, through video, like we could do a zoom and I could hold up a card as well. So So you know, if I were reading for you, you could see the card and share that experience. When the picture is right in front of you. It’s it can move you on a very deeply personal level. So if I’m in that story that I mentioned, there was a teenage girl cutting herself and it became really apparent fast what was going on. And her cards of course are full of swords, you know, these knives, and and really kind of gory sort of bloody images. And it had to be that clear. To get to the heart of her problem if that makes sense. She had to be able to see that I could see what was going on. And and so it was sort of all spelled out there. A lot of the guidance that I give through the cards comes from, you know, my, what I call cafeteria plan of spirituality, I guess grew up in the Episcopal Church. And I have a very Christian background, but not traditionally. So and, and I am a student of Buddhism and the Dow, and I am a teacher of A Course in Miracles. And so, you know, all of this sort of feeds into my Taro. And I can look at the cards and I can see lessons coming from some of the Scriptures and teachings that I know. And I usually share that with my clients. So so I’m not a traditional tarot card reader in the way that you’re probably not going to find my answers always in the taro books on on, you know what such and such a card means? I’m doing a lot of it off of intuition. And I’m using the pictures for cues. And and it’s a very mutual reading experience. Because of course, I don’t know my clients lives or what’s going on in their subconscious in a conscious fashion. I’m just mirroring what I see to them. And, and they’re interpreting it with me. So there are seeing in the in this deck, you know, as I hold up the cards, I’m sorry, is that my computer making that noise or? Bell? Good? Anyway, but yeah. So I don’t know if that answered.

george grombacher 6:30
Is this a fair sort of analogy, if I were not, if I were a non Christian or a non Jew, and I picked up the Bible, and I just started reading it, it sort of makes sense to me. But without knowing the deeper meanings of it, it would be similar. If I just picked up a deck of tarot cards and started looking at them. I could sort of kind of infer, but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t get it

Julia Gordon-Bramer 6:53
well. So I have another story in the book of a guy at a party who’s quite drunk, who knows nothing about tarot, who takes my deck and says, Well, let me read those cards for you, you know, and he throws him down on the table. And he starts to, you know, and he’s just riffing off the pictures. But he did a surprisingly good reading for me. And I believe it was, first of all, because he was open, you know, because when you’re drunk, he’s not worried about being wrong. He’s not afraid of making a fool of himself. He’s already you know, he’s already gone. So so he was just taking the cues. And, and honestly, there’s very intuitive and so I think everyone is intuitive to different degrees. And it’s just teaching yourself to trust that and to kind of follow down the rabbit hole where that goes. But not everybody can do it, a lot of people are kind of wound a little too tight. And, you know, are just afraid of guessing wrong or being made a fool of themselves in some way. But I do think anyone can read the cards.

george grombacher 8:04
So in the example of, of, of the young woman, what is does it prescribe a course of action moving forward? What is what is for lack of a better term? The point?

Julia Gordon-Bramer 8:20
Yeah, in my case, I gave her very clear, specific directions that this had to stop. And, you know, or else and kind of how bad it could get. And, and I think she was pretty shaken up. And because I didn’t follow up, you know, because it’s not my place. Sometimes I really wish I could follow up and know that people are going to end up all right. But sometimes my job is just to plant the seed and hope they take it, you know, hope it grows. Obviously, everybody has a complicated life. And you don’t get to a point where you’re hurting yourself without a lot of pain, and your background. But sometimes all it takes and I know this from my own experience growing up as a teenager, sometimes it’s just one person that can see you and can recognize and say something. And so, so I feel like I’ve been blessed that maybe the person has given me a timer to through the Tarot.

george grombacher 9:22
Yeah, I appreciate that. So we have these oral traditions that have been passed down for 1000s and 1000s of years before we had, you know, written word and everything else. How long has has Terrell been around? Maybe not in its exact form.

Julia Gordon-Bramer 9:40
Yeah, well, we know that the first tarot cards showed up in Italy in the 1400s. And they were different. It was sort of a fancy card game for the wealthy royals and you know in the elite however, There’s a lot of lore built into that. And the story goes that the Romani the I know it’s not a politically correct term anymore, but the gypsies, encoded meanings within these cards. And they did this to basically smuggle across Europe their secrets of, of alchemy and mysticism, and, and, and all of the religious ideas that were not necessarily approved of, in the days of the Crusades, when you could die if you weren’t Catholic. Taro is in line with the Kabbalah Tree of Life with witches, Jewish mysticism, which of course, was not popular during the Crusades. And you couldn’t be a Jew. And so there’s a lot of there’s a lot of kind of lore and baggage, and how much of it is actually true, is very difficult to prove. But we do know that today’s cards when I say today’s within the last couple, 100 years, based on the the Rider Waite system, which happened around the turn of the century, with the hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and they purposefully encoded numerology and mythology, and religion and history and alchemy, and astrology, ology astronomy, it’s all sort of built into the tarot card designs. And so that’s why there’s so much meaning in one given tarot card, and that it can, it can say so much for a person.

george grombacher 11:49
That’s it’s very cool story about the, the, the gypsies using, using the cards or physical thing to to sort of sneak their culture traditions. I think that that’s, that’s incredible. The idea it’s, we live in such a strange time where we’ve got misinformation, and Mal information and fake news and this that the other thing you said truth, and I wrote down truth and wisdom, whether something is true or not. Is that separate from wisdom? Because it strikes me that that something that’s been done since the 14th century, carries a ton of wisdom with it?

Julia Gordon-Bramer 12:37
Sure. I mean, there are, well look at look at ancient Greece, I mean, the the mythology that comes from ancient Greece, all of our psychiatric terms are named after that stuff, because they had this wisdom about our neuroses and our complexes and you know, that they aligned with their gods. And to explain so much, and it still is absolutely relevant. Man has not changed that much. In 1000s of years. Given, you know, all the technology and stuff, the essence of us is, we’re still the same, we still have the same needs and the same desires, we may do it differently. We still have the same addictions and weaknesses. Yeah, but so you know, truth. Truth in these days, gosh, what it what is truth? You know, I mean, that’s, that’s such a, it’s been the question of the philosophers for forever. Today, I think all we’ve got is really just that deep knowing if if something feels right, or not, if something feels loving, and kind and correct or, or, ya know, deceitful or, or angry, or, you know, some of the other motivations.

george grombacher 14:04
Isn’t that the truth? And so much of our, I was gonna say modern living, but in 100 years, we’re going to use the term modern living and then it’s gonna be monitored. So the current state of affairs is what is it that we can just solve things through technology and innovation? And maybe we can, but we all know we have that deep knowing, which is inside is that inside all of us?

Julia Gordon-Bramer 14:34
I believe it is, you know, I think technology and innovation can do a lot but we’re all really becoming very aware that we’re losing our humanity in the pursuit of it, and that we’ve got a whole generation now that doesn’t know how to look people in the eye and shake hands and, and have basic social courtesies, you know, and, and feel, you know, that term all Awkward. People are embracing it. They’re embracing the term autistic for God’s sakes. And I see it all the time, like they are afraid to mix with others and afraid of connection. And and if taro does anything it connects, and it connects me to the person I’m reading for, because I can see them on a deeper level and I can reflect the truth of them, and where their energy is going and what what their belief system is, and I can bring it to their consciousness. And in a way, that’s clear. But yeah, you know, I think that it’s all about connection. And I do think we’re losing that a lot. And so maybe Taro is going to be one of the tools to get it back. I can, I can only hope.

george grombacher 15:50
Yeah, well, certainly anything that that helps foster that interpersonal exchange fits. There’s so much value in simply talking about things. And these days, we have so few, at least it strikes me that let me take a big step back. One of the things I enjoy so much about doing the podcast is you get the opportunity, I get the opportunity to spend 20 minutes with somebody where we’re giving each other our 100%, undivided attention. And it’s so rare, so I can see exactly what you’re saying how taro gives you that opportunity, just through a different medium for lack of a better term.

Julia Gordon-Bramer 16:29
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah,

george grombacher 16:34
I guess. So what is what is an AI? It’s a clunky, crude way to kind of ask or say, what is, if you could just make the case for why I should, or what I stand to gain from having a Tarot reading?

Julia Gordon-Bramer 16:52
Well, it will show you in a very clear way where your energy is going, what, you know, you can ask me, you could say, give me a general reading and just see what shows up for me. And a lot of times, you know, for a young man your age, you probably see career stuff and family stuff, and, you know, kind of kind of the most important things in your life, right? Sometimes people want very specific direction, and they can say, you know, I’ve got this fork project, and I want to see where you see this thing specifically going, or, or I’m having this relationship conflict. And you know, I’m estranged from my brother, or, or my, my kid is just not cooperating in any way. And, and we can get into that kind of relationship and where the loved ones TED is, and what what people are feeling and what they understand about the situation. And that can just bring some clarity, really, and to and sometimes some tools, you know, some actual advice, people will say, Well, I don’t know what to do about this. Can you tell me, and I’ll see what the cards say. And, you know, the interesting thing about the cards is, it’s almost always about going in, you know, Gandhi said, Be the change you wish to see in the world. And I always say he didn’t mean be a model citizen. He said, If you see war out there, you have to, and obviously, we got a lot of that going on right now. Right? You have to look inside and say, Where’s the war in me right now? You know, do I have a war with my sister going on right now? Do I have a war with my job? Do I have you know, am I in this turmoil? Am I not willing to have some debate or to put myself on the other sides, you know, point of view and, and really, you know, find that place of peace and love. We have to bring it in all the ways. And that helps give us personal peace. And when we make that change in ourselves, it does our part to change the world.

george grombacher 19:02
I love that. I love the idea of interrogating reality. And if I understand

Julia Gordon-Bramer 19:09
you will turn interrogating reality.

george grombacher 19:13
It’s from the book fierce conversations. Awesome term. And am I hearing you correctly that you mentioned a minute ago that it’s telling us where our energy is going? But it’s not it’s not telling me what I want to hear or what I think I should hear. It’s telling me what is and based on what is I can then I can I can accept that information and say, Wow, okay, it sounds like I need to make these changes or adjustments or consider these things if I’m not happy with what is

Julia Gordon-Bramer 19:51
right, because it’s a heads up. Because you know, like so I always tell my clients I can read your cards because we’re connected, just by being Being alive. I call that life force God, I don’t tell people how to do God what to call God, that’s totally your business, you know, if you want to call it source, if you want to call it the universe, energy, Allah, Buddha, whatever, you know, it’s all on you. But if you can say, alright, I’m alive, I’m hooked into this this god system, and you therefore have great power over your life. You know, we know, in so many other ways that that our minds are powerful, you know, athletes, they know, to keep their eyes on the prize, that they don’t say, what if I trip and fall? What if I don’t make it to the finish line, because that opens up that space for that negative thing to happen. Doctors know about the power of the mind with the placebo effect, and with the will to live. So these are universal principles we just forget, when we’re looking at, you know, our love life, or our relationships with our family is and what we put our mind on grows. And so I show you where to put your mind and where it where it’s working and where it’s not working. And we all have our little negative things that we focus on now. And then everybody does it. But But worry doesn’t serve us you know, it’s not helpful.

george grombacher 21:19
No, it’s not. I love it. You, you you summed up my ramblings beautifully by saying it’s a heads up, so awesome. Well, Julia, thank you so much for coming back on where can people learn more about you? Where can they engage and where can they get their copy of terrible life lessons?

Julia Gordon-Bramer 21:39
Awesome, awesome. Well, they can find me My website is Julia Gordon bramer.com, Gordon GLR do when Bramer, B ra M er, and I’m on all the social networks. I’m on Facebook, and I’m on Twitter and I’m on Instagram. You can find my book taro life lessons through any of the major booksellers. It’s available for pre order right now. And then November 7, is the official release date. I have also recorded an audiobook for it, which was really fun and a ton of work. And oh my gosh, I had no idea how hard it would be but but I think I did a good job. You know, you can’t just read you have to act it out. Right. So it was it required a little bit of effort from me here. But that will be released shortly after the November 7 date. I’m not sure exactly when and and then there’s a release in Europe about a month after as well. Very exciting.

george grombacher 22:40
Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did show Julia your appreciation and share this show with somebody else who appreciates good ideas. Go to learn more about Julia at Julia Gordon bramer.com. It’s Julia spelled normally g o r d o n, which I think is also spelled normally and then Bramer, B Ra, m er.com. And find her on social media. I’ll link all those in the notes of the show. And you can pick up your copy of Tara life lessons right now on pre order. And it actually goes on sale November the seventh and pick up your copy and dig deeper into what we’ve been talking about today. Thanks again, Julio.

Julia Gordon-Bramer 23:20
Thank you, George. Great to see you again. Great, catch you next year.

george grombacher 23:24
And until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best